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Tuesday, 7 September 2010

My excitement the Sunday night could not be contained, contained by the 4 walls that surrounded me and everyone else in the Elephant and Wheelbarrow pub in St Kilda as the goals kept mounting up, goals against Kilkenny that is, and everybody was sure that Kilkenny was going to win the All Ireland hurling final

Now, I didn't care who won the game really as long as Kilkenny lost, and did they lose!
Now, let me explain. I, like every other hurling fan, here and all over the world saw the 2 finalists that were scheduled to play (Tipperary and Kilkenny) and I thought,

'There is no way that Kilkenny can be beaten, so whets the point of going to watch it live?

And by live, we were talking 12.30 am on a Monday morning, way past my bed time

'I might watch the replay tomorrow after work?

That's what I though, initially that is. The best part of watching a hurling final is when the score is close, and it comes right down to the wire, its exciting stuff!

But then, since I love hurling, and it being the All Ireland final, there wasn't going to be much hurling action for another 6 months, so, it just had to view live, no excuses!

Dave and Sandra that I met in Bolivia were watching the game in St Kilda, so I thought I’d go there and off I went, but first a walk to Hoddle St, to get the bus, that would be passing the door of the 'The Pint on Punt', the first port of call, a bar that was packed with half a small Irish county of people. Maybe Sligo? I don’t even know where Sligo is, so that much is probably true?

Sligo is here

One guy I overheard in the pub on his phone was saying.

'Sur come down, the craic is good, come down for one pint, the craic is good now, so it is'

Very Irish, indeed. I could have been in Ireland.

A true Patriot car?

After the live music, we piled into Sandra’s Americano jeep, she started selling these things recently out in the burbs, now, to my mind the only people on the face of the planet that would buy them would be the ones that reside North of Mexico and south of Canada and maybe Alaska? If you’re stupid enough to buy one, you deserve one and all the trouble they will reek on you.

Jeremy Clarkson was on to something when he said Americans made rubbish cars as they had no concept of the past and little vision of the future and hence, rubbish cars, I would have to agree.

Introducing Jeremy

But I digress, I used the word 'and' a lot there and maybe inappropriately, but it would be the nicest inappropriate thing I’ve ever done, or maybe, I just don’t know any better? I'm ready to plead insanity too, if that helps?

Sandra seemed to have problems negotiating her vehicle into a parking spot, then she tried parking it against the traffic, you can do that in Ireland, but not in the United States of Australia, I don’t remember anything about that in the Free trade agreement Australia signed with the US, but since they did conceded a lot with that Agreement, maybe they agreed to 'lax' parking rules too, it's hard to be sure? But since you can be fined here for parking incorrectly, I’d doubt it. You could get fines here for sneezing. The Wild West days, alas are no more, hello bourgeois, fine dining and chardonnay.

The good old days are over

So, before long it was game on and to everyone’s amazement, Tipperary were playing well, they should have scored more in the first half, Kilkenny came back towards the end of the first half, Henry Shefflin went off after 12 minutes, a big blow, to Kilkenny, and it was game on for Tipperary.
To cut a long story short, Tipperary got 4 goals, the last one coming in the last few minutes, it was the icing on the cake, the place went mad, I went bonkers, after 70 minutes of frantic, amazing hurling, 3 minutes were added, and people went either bezerk or left dazed, wondering

'How in the name of god did Kilkenny, on their way for 5 in a row, lose that?

Tipperary, which got beaten by Cork, lost to Kilkenny, which had some many star players, who could have predicted that?

There was a fierce hunger in Tipperary

If it was down to 'hunger', Tipperary certainly had it, they could have ate a farmers arse with that hunger!

The next day Dave from Waterford was asking me who won. He couldn't believe it when I told him; I couldn’t believe it and I saw it. Tipperary won by about 9 points too. So I watched the replay, and seeing really is believing, even if it’s the second time around.

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Hanging out at the Abbotsford convent in Melbourne

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